8-Core CPU Heads Xbox One's Hardware Specs

The Xbox One will have an 8-core CPU, 8 gig of RAM, a 500GB hard drive and a Blu-Ray disc drive.

Unlike Sony's PS4, who was a bit camera shy when it came to getting a shot of the actual console and its innards, Microsoft have been pretty forward with how the Xbox One looks both inside and outside. Heading its internal hardware will be an impressive 8-core CPU, supported by 8 gig of RAM, a 500GB hard drive and a Blu-Ray disc drive. It will also come with three 802.11N Wi-Fi radios, Ethernet, USB 3.0, and HDMI in and out.

The graphics card, arguably the most important piece of hardware, will actually be combined with the 8-core CPU. It will be a heavily customized AMD GPU tailored for DirectX 11.1 graphics, with 32MB of high bandwidth embedded eSRAM memory. Microsoft says that the CPU/GPU will consume around 100 watts of power, which is slightly higher than the current Xbox Slim and PS3, but it promises noise from the cooling fans will be "four times quieter."

Oh, and that new Kinect thing, sporting a 250,000-pixel infrared depth sensor as well as a regular 720p web cam, will also be packaged with every Xbox One

These stats seem pretty impressive, but without the clock rates and other specifics, its pretty hard to place it in terms of similarly priced PC components. For instance "8-core processors" run as low as $200 for AMD's FX-8150 to $2,000 for Intel's Xeon E5-2687W. If we are using modest comparisons to components already on the market, we are looking at around $500 worth of hardware.

It is also worth noting that the 8 gig of RAM in the Xbox One is standard DDR3 RAM instead of the fancy-pants GDDR5 that the PS4 is boasting. The console will also be switching to a much more PC-friendly x86 architecture.

Microsoft also claims that three separate 802.11n radios are included to allow the console to communicate with its controller (over a form of WiFi Direct) as well as other devices, such as phones or tablets, without losing its connection to the internet.